A bold and brilliant short work by the author of the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Cuddy

November, 1971. Berlin, Germany. Opening night.

Klaus Kinski, Germany’s most controversial actor, steps into the spotlight to a crowd of thousands.

After years of making movies abroad, he has returned to the stage for a much-publicized one-man performance about Jesus Christ. As the crowd turn on him and violence is threatened, it is also very nearly his last. After this week, he will never perform on stage again.

Exactly fifty years later, a hypochondriac writer, housebound by winter snowstorms, becomes fixated with video footage of Kinski at his most manic.

In this forensic analysis, he strays into the darker corners of modern culture, and finally begins to understand the compulsive urge that drives artists to the edge of sanity in their pursuit of perfection.

Jesus Christ Kinski is a novel about a film about a performance about Jesus. It is a daring act of literary ventriloquism, a meditation on censorship, creativity, loneliness – and just how far our tolerance is tested by bad people who make great art.

"A tour de force of literary ventriloquism … His intense, double-edged fiction reminds us again of how exciting – in the right hands – the novel can be" - OBSERVER

"Spellbinding … the bold, inventive structure of Jesus Christ Kinski gives Myers the room to reflect on stagecraft, censorship, mental health, loneliness, cancel culture – and what we do with great art made by horrible people" - INDEPENDENT, The best books of 2025

"Klaus Kinski was one of the world’s most controversial (and physically dangerous) actors. Myers’s novel, born of a real-life lockdown obsession, retells, via a demented monologue, the time Kinski decided to play Jesus Christ on stage in front of an audience of rebellious German youths" - Telegraph, The greatest books of 2025

"The book’s achievement lies in the throbbing life force of Kinski himself. His is a dark star, close to collapse. It offers no guiding light but continues to burn five decades on" - NEW STATESMAN

"Disturbingly enjoyable" - LITERARY REVIEW

"A daring experimentation ... The funniest comic novel I've read in ages" - TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, Books of the Year

"A compelling autofictional account which exerts a strange charm … Plunges us into Kinski’s fevered mind … A riot of salty vituperation" - GUARDIAN

"A molotov cocktail of a novel ... An experiment to find the line between art and madness, genius and monster; and a confession about authorial obsession ... It provided me with the most fun I’ve had as a literary critic in years." - HERALD

"Brilliant ... The bravura stylistic flourishes, the wild imagination, the conjuring of a damaged and maddening psyche – this book is strange and electrifying ... When Myers’s Kinski – vituperative, committed, possessed – grabs us by the neck and spits in our faces, deep down we know it’s what we deserve ... One of our brightest young novelists" - DAILY TELEGRAPH

"A rollercoaster ride ... Strap in and jump on the mad actor’s back, but, for fuck’s sake, don’t let go" - THE CRACK

"A furious, erratic voice, speaking to itself in lonely lines ... The words of a genius, delivered by the mouth of a drunk. Sometimes they look like poetry, sometimes they verge on prose. Sometimes the letters go completely astray and come out like chunks of vomit on the page. Past and present collide, inner and outer monologue muddle, but no one escapes Kinski’s ire" - FINANCIAL TIMES

"An experimental and distinguished novel ... An idiosyncratic and destabilising performance that matches Kinski’s own" - SPECTATOR

"Highly original, bold, inventive … Myers captures the dark and forceful energy of Kinski and his startlingly aggressive and vicious mind … A stunning rendering" - independent.co.uk, Book of the Month

"Exciting, shocking, funny and fascinating … Experimental in form but highly readable. Hugely entertaining … The only question is where Myers will take us next … His best book yet" - NEW WORLD

"Benjamin Myers is truly one of the most exciting writers we have, and Jesus Christ Kinski cements his reputation as an innovative and versatile author, able to write an astonishing range of styles while remaining utterly compelling and surprising. Here is Myers at his experimental and provocative best, raising questions of literary censorship, commercialism and the separation of one’s appreciation of an artist’s life and work" - FOYLES, Top Ten Reads for October

"A bravura conceit written with messianic intensity, Kinski coming over like a cross between Hitler and Iggy Pop … Myers is one of the UK’s finest authors, his restless mind never settling on one style or genre, and his latest – a which I read in one sitting – asks questions about the creative process and “the art” vs the artist" - THE CRACK

"Makes most contemporary fiction look bloodless by comparison" - DAILY MAIL

"A vivid demonstration of the way in which extreme conditions conjure up unexpected subjects, hovering outside the room, tapping on the window pane, wanting to be let in" - TLS

"Praise for Benjamin Myers: 'Dizzyingly inventive" - Daily Telegraph

"A visionary epic" - Guardian, Books of the Year 2023

"One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation" - Daily Mail